The Playground Murders

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘…I understand that the dry ice that Lucie May used was ordered in your company’s name. Do you have a licence?’ Janet gave an ‘I have to ask’ shrug.

  ‘It’s not for public use.’ Stella had expected this. Lucie had purloined Clean Slate’s supplier number and ordered a box of pellets to be sent to her home. Technically a crime.

  ‘It’s like Lucie expected trouble.’

  ‘I think she planned a photograph of Hindle emerging from dry ice in the playground. For an article.’ Stella recalled Lucie’s comment when she was sitting in the chute. ‘The scoop of the century.’ ‘We use it for cryogenic cleaning. It’s an effective decontaminant, sometimes more appropriate than applying chemicals.’

  A whiteboard was marked with days of the week. The grid headed ‘Who Is Doing What???…’ The question marks and dots suggested disagreement over task allocation. Stella noted that two p.m. the previous day had been scheduled to restore Mr Henson’s property – a Rolex watch – to him. Trudy couldn’t have put up with the groaning filing trays.

  Trudy didn’t exist.

  ‘Lucie May did use the ice in a public space.’ Janet pulled a face. ‘Did you know about the order?’

  ‘No,’ Stella said. ‘If Lucie hadn’t created a smoke – dry ice – screen Marshall would have killed the children.’ Dedication, professionalism and leadership. ‘Lucie saved Milly and Justin’s lives.’ Lucie had saved Danielle Hindle.

  ‘She was brave,’ Janet agreed. ‘I doubt we’ll press charges. Gloucestershire police suspect that Penelope Philips left the safe accommodation the night before she turned up at Lucie May’s. Philips denies it. Did Lucie mention anything to you?’

  ‘No.’ Lucie hadn’t mentioned anything.

  ‘It’s an offence to harbour an ex-prisoner out on licence within the environs of their crime. Philips was forbidden to go within ten miles of the area.’ Janet tapped the pages of Stella’s statement straight on her desk.

  ‘Hind— Philips might have held Lucie hostage.’ Stella’s heart missed a beat. She was going to be arrested. That was what Janet had meant by ‘special’.

  ‘We can’t ask Lucie.’

  A pause as both women digested this.

  She climbed into the ambulance after Lucie’s stretcher. When the paramedic asked her about Lucie it was hard to hear over the blare of the siren.

  What is Lucie’s date of birth? I don’t know. Was Lucie on medication? Apart from Hendrick’s gin, Stella had no idea. She did know Lucie’s next of kin. A sister and a nephew in Kew. They lived near Jack. She couldn’t recall the sister’s address.

  Although she’d known Lucie most of her life, Stella discovered that she knew few facts about her. She gave Lucie’s British Grove address and her occupation. ‘She’s a fine journalist. Brave.’ Facts of a sort.

  Lucie’s eyes were shut. The paramedic was saying she might have hit her head. The stab wound in her stomach was shallow. She should not be unconscious.

  Then the woman stopped talking and was fiddling with tubes. The ambulance picked up speed.

  ‘One more thing,’ Janet asked.

  One more thing. That old trick. Stella quelled the urge to bolt from the room.

  ‘Penelope Philips says that she saw Terry on the day he died. Did she tell you?’

  ‘She’s lying. Terry didn’t see Hindle after the trial.’

  ‘Thought so,’ Janet agreed. She shook her head. ‘Joanne Marshall fooled the Aussie cops. A friend of Marshall’s is facing a prison sentence for riding that ferry across the bay and giving Marshall her alibi. People do these things without thinking of repercussions. Some of us grow up knowing it’s wrong to lie.’ Janet slid the statement across the desk, indicating paragraph breaks with a finger. ‘OK, Stella, you know the drill, if you’re happy with each point, initial and sign.’

  This statement (consisting of: 3 pages each signed by me) is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true…

  Happy? Would she be happy again? Stella scribbled her signature on the line.

  ‘What about that coffee?’ Cashman caught up with her in the foyer.

  ‘Actually, I—’

  ‘Stella!’ Justin and Milly clung limpet-tight to her legs.

  ‘The twins wanted to clap eyes on you. See for themselves that you escaped from the Nasty Lady.’ Jack looked deep into her eyes. ‘Are you OK, darling?’

  ‘I am now.’ Stella kissed Jack longer than she’d ever kissed anyone in public before.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he whispered.

  Stella told Cashman, ‘Another time.’

  The twins each took a hand and, with Jack, they came out of the station. They were immediately assailed by cameras, shouts, flashes, microphones were thrust at them.

  ‘Give them space.’ Martin Cashman cut a swathe through the crowd.

  A horn blared. Jack’s creaky old BMW estate was parked at the kerb.

  ‘Jackie’s back from grandmother duties. We’re due there for a slap-up tea.’ Beverly was in the driving seat. ‘And guess what, Carrie Philips has paid the bill. She said we did what she wanted. Got her dad out of prison and put her mother back there. It’ll be a while till they play happy families. Hardly a happy ending.’

  Tomorrow she and Jack were taking Cathy Ferris to Newhaven. They would all tend Sarah’s grave. Stella had suggested it as a way of assuaging Cathy’s grief. Stella knew she was also doing it for herself. If she cleaned the headstone it might keep Lucie alive. Bonkers thinking.

  Jack leaned in and clipped on Stella’s belt. ‘Love you, Stella Darnell.’

  ‘Love you back, Jackanory.’ Stella never used Lucie’s name for Jack. She saw him register this. ‘After Jackie’s I want to go to the hospital.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack stopped smiling.

  Bev pulled out into the traffic and made for the Broadway. A few reporters, some lugging TV cameras, gave chase. Above the furore Stella heard a cackle. She checked in the wing mirror.

  ‘Have a nippet on me, Sherlock!’ No Lucie.

  Obviously not. As Janet had said.

  Lucie May had forced herself between Marshall and Hindle. Marshall had stabbed Lucie and pushed her out of the way to go on to attack Hindle. She’d been too late – Hindle had got away. Lucie had fallen and hit her head on the chute. The first serious injury in the playground since it had been renovated fifteen years before.

  Lucie’s skull had been fractured in a childhood injury, her sister had told the doctors. The break was exactly where she sustained the second blow. An unlucky fluke. Lucie had sunk into unconsciousness moments after Stella had left her to speak to Cashman in the playground. Brain scans showed serious bleeding, but it would not be possible to assess the damage until Lucie woke up. If she woke up.

  ‘Clean so deep, scrub-a-dub-dub…!’ Milly struck up with her cleaning song. Stella joined in. Then Jack and Beverly. They sang at the top of their voices.

  Today was the first of May. The sun was shining, daffodils in the park were in full bloom. Summer was here. Terry had said, Smile and you feel like smiling.

  Jack was beginning to accept Harry in his children’s lives. And Bella was letting her see them. Jack would be taking part in the interviews for Stella’s new PA. They didn’t need to play Happy Families. It was real. Her mood didn’t lift. Bev was right, it was hardly a happy ending.

  ‘Clean so deep, scrub-a-dub-dub,’ Stella kept singing.

  Epilogue

  2011

  Terry wiped a hand down his face. It came away damp. The air was cold, snow was due and yet he was in a flop sweat. Today was meant to be a good day. If only Stella would answer her phone. He wouldn’t ring Clean Slate. Like him, Stella didn’t mix work with pleasure. This was work, but with Stella on board it would be a great pleasure. Terry glanced at his phone again. Stella hadn’t texted.

&nbs
p; In her note Danielle Hindle had said that she had something to tell him. So Terry agreed to meet her. In the playground. Not superstitious nor bothered by astrology yet he dared believe that his stars were lining up. Today was the day.

  Hindle would finally express remorse for Sarah Ferris’s murder. She would admit she had pushed Robbie Walsh off the slide. Then he would never see Hindle again.

  ‘…Carrie got a first at Cambridge. She’s going to law school!’

  ‘What?’ His face was running with water.

  ‘Were you even listening?’

  ‘Carrie’s going to law school,’ he repeated before he remembered that he didn’t have justify anything.

  ‘That proves you weren’t listening.’

  ‘What did you want to tell me?’ He mopped his face with his hankie.

  ‘You all right?’

  It wouldn’t be concern. If he wasn’t all right, he wouldn’t listen to her. Lucie had always said that all Hindle wanted was attention. Cashman had spotted that at the off.

  ‘Fine. You said you had something to tell me.’

  ‘I just told you!’ She slapped the arm of the bench. Robbie’s bench.

  ‘Was that it?’ He got up. Feeling dizzy, he sat down again. ‘What about the murders?’

  ‘What murders?’

  ‘The ones you did.’ He pointed at a yellow chute. To where Sarah’s body had been found.

  ‘That’s all done with. I’ve moved on. You should too, Terry.’ So thoughtful.

  ‘Aren’t you sorry?’

  ‘For what?’ She looked genuinely curious.

  Terry found himself wishing that, like last time, Lucie would turn up. He wouldn’t mind if she succeeded where he’d failed. And got Hindle to say the words. ‘I’m sorry.’ To let those children rest in peace.

  ‘Come and see my house. We’re having a party to celebrate Carrie,’ Hindle said. ‘Meet Chris. See my Carrie. Winchcombe’s a lovely place.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’ He’d been to Winchcombe for another case. He wasn’t going to admit it. As it was, she crawled inside his head like some kind of rot. ‘Sarah and Robbie, what made you kill them?’ It wasn’t how he would start an interview. A direct accusation tempted a ‘no comment’.

  ‘You’ve left the police. Let go! Play golf.’ She was smiling but he knew that face. Hindle liked to get her own way.

  ‘Did they upset you? Was Sarah going to tell on you?’ He used the language of the ten-year-old he knew was still in there.

  ‘You and Christopher have a lot in common.’ She tugged his sleeve. Terry jumped as if she was electrified.

  ‘This is the last time that we’ll ever meet!’ His breaths were fast and shallow. He’d promised himself to keep calm.

  ‘…we wanted to add an extension. It’s a listed building so we’re hampered.’ Hindle was dabbing on lip salve. Eucalyptus. Terry had used it at post-mortems to disguise the smell of decomposition.

  ‘…there’s five bedrooms, three with en-suites. A huge garage. If my family could see me.’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘The house is full of real antiques. Chris has a shop selling them, I put it in my letters. I’ve kept yours. I read them over and over.’

  ‘I never wrote to you.’ His chest tightened. Had he written back? Recently he couldn’t trust his memory. She made things up. When he got home tomorrow, he’d chuck out her letters.

  He’d tell Stella everything. The meetings, the letters. Stella would tell him he was stupid to have kept them. No, that was Suzie. Or Lucie. Stella never judged. In his mind, Terry was talking to Stella and was appalled to see Hindle on the bench. He got up and this time there was no dizziness.

  ‘This new-fangled equipment is a joke! She looked at the chute. And this!’ She stamped her boot on the rubberized ground. ‘You’d bounce if you fell off that climbing frame. There should be the outline of a body like at a crime scene. Today’s kids are wrapped in cotton wool.’

  ‘We don’t do that at crime scenes,’ Terry couldn’t help saying.

  ‘Not “we”. They. You’re not police now. I was careful with Carrie. They were waiting to come down on me like a ton of bricks if she got a scratch!’

  ‘Does your family know?’ Her bright chatter drilled into him. Terry smacked at perspiration on his cheek.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you murdered two children here in this playground.’ The judge had said Danielle Hindle knew the difference between right and wrong.

  ‘Why would I tell them?’

  ‘It’s the truth. Otherwise your life is a sham.’ Terry smelled decomposition now. She had gutted him.

  Stella hadn’t rung.

  They should replace this old thing, it’s rotten.’ Danielle picked at a splinter on the bench.

  Terry saw the playground of his youth and of Hindle’s childhood. The lumbering roundabout. The tower slide from which Hindle pushed Robbie to his death. The rocking boat. The stain of blood seeping from under Sarah. Life was a sham. Only death was real.

  ‘I have to go.’ He felt he was pushing through water. ‘I’m on a case.’

  ‘Sure you are.’

  ‘I’m meeting Stella.’

  ‘Fancy your daughter being a cleaner! You were full of how she’d follow in your footsteps.’ Her tone was flinty. ‘She could clean for my Carrie.’

  ‘I’m very proud of her.’ He’d never discussed Stella. Had he?

  ‘It must hurt her never visiting. Or writing. Not like I do.’

  How did she know? The playground was a kind of hell. Horses on giant springs, swings on chains, a jungle climbing frame all primary-coloured instruments of torture.

  ‘I wanted to be a detective. They won’t let me.’ She kept pace.

  You’d never guess that the middle-aged woman in expensive coat and boots, Gucci bag on her shoulder, was the Playground Murderer. Terry would. His job had taught him to know evil.

  ‘…that stuff they write in the papers. It’s a stain on my character,’ she whined.

  ‘Enough.’ Terry stopped, his hand up. ‘Listen to me, Danielle…’

  ‘My name’s—’

  ‘Do those families a favour. Admit what you did. Tell them about Robbie and Sarah’s last moments. Tell them why you killed their children. Give Lee Marshall that angel charm, I know you’ve got it.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I keep that charm?’

  ‘Because you can kid yourself that Jason gave it to you. Except you’re not his best sister. You’re no one’s best sister.’ Terry clutched at his jacket, shutting it against a sudden sharp breeze that cut to his heart.

  ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say any of that.’ Danielle put on sleek leather gloves, forking into the fingers to fit them on. ‘Go home, do the garden.’

  Terry strode away.

  On Dalgarno Gardens he tried Stella again. She didn’t answer.

  *

  The next day was a Tuesday, but for Terry, it was D-Day, his trip to Seaford had been a success. When he got home he’d go and see Stella at her office. She get why he’d come.

  Terry followed signs and found a car park behind the Co-op. He paid for half an hour – the shortest period; at the outside he would be fifteen minutes – and displayed the ticket. Seaford was a retirement town. This early on a parky January morning there were few locals about. Too frigging quiet. Skirting around pedestrians progressing slowly with the aid of walking frames or wheelie shopping trolleys, Terry couldn’t imagine growing old here. A dog lashed to a bench gave intermittent howls. It reminded him of Hector the dog Stella had chosen from a litter of spaniels when she was three.

  A man stepped out of the chocolate shop opposite Seaford’s Co-op holding a beribboned box. He shoved it in his pocket and headed off towards the car park.

  Terry retreated into the heated supermarket where he snatched up a pork pie from the chiller cabinet, hesitated, then made it two; he’d missed supper. He grabbed a can of Coke. He broke into a sweat and, swaying, put
out a staying hand. He needed to eat, that was all.

  Terry Darnell faltered in the doorway of the Co-op. Darkness squeezed him from the sides. His carrier bag felt heavy. Darkness pushed from above. Then from below. He made for the street. Sunshine, a snatch of pavement. It seemed to Terry that his phone was ringing and that he answered it.

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘Dad, it’s me. I’m coming.’

  The woman who had queued behind Terry when he got his pork pies and can of Coke tutted when she ran into him. When he fell down, she shouted for someone to call an ambulance. She was a nurse, so when she tried to resuscitate him, Terry would have had the best chance. But before the paramedics arrived he was dead.

  The Playground Murders

  LESLEY THOMSON grew up in west London. Her first novel, A Kind of Vanishing, won the People’s Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel, The Detective’s Daughter, was a #1 bestseller and the series has sold over 750,000 copies. Lesley divides her time between Sussex and Gloucestershire. She lives with herpartner and her dog.

  STELLA DARNELL runs a successful cleaning company in west London. Her father was a senior detective in the Metropolitan police. Like him, Stella roots into shadowy places and restores order.

  JACK HARMON works the night shifts as a London Underground train driver. Where Stella is rational and practical, Jack is governed by intuition. Their different skills make them a successful detective partnership.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to Gary Haines, archivist at the Victoria and Albert’s Museum of Childhood. I spent a happy day in the building’s basement poring over papers. Gary pointed me to the archives of Donne Buck, a key innovator of adventure playgrounds in the nineteen sixties and seventies. As I read about playground equipment safety (the lack of) up until the eighties I felt relieved to have got through my own childhood with only a broken arm.